Hold That Thought

On December 9, 2012, a balloon the size of a football field ascended nearly 140,000 feet into the Antarctic sky. The balloon carried Super-TIGER, a two-ton instrument built to detect cosmic rays. Drs. W. Robert Binns and Martin Israel, who head the cosmic ray group within the physics department at Washington University in St. Louis, describe this record-breaking experiment and explain why they seek to know more about the origins of cosmic rays.

Christine Floss, research professor in the physics department at Washington University in St. Louis, spends her time investigating microscopic specks of dust that have remained unchanged since before the formation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. These presolar grains help researchers like Floss answer questions about the formation of elements, the solar system, and the universe as a whole. Floss describes how she and her students search for presolar grains in ancient meteorites, why tiny grains of silica are particularly fascinating, and how as an undergraduate geology major she first became hooked on outer space.

What questions have yet to be answered about the Moon? Bradley Jolliff, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how lunar samples and orbiters continue to provide fascinating insights into the geologic history of Earth's closest neighbor. Jolliff, who works with the Mars rover Opportunity, also shares his dreams of a future lunar rover that would visit sites that continue to puzzle scientists, including the immense South Pole-Aitken Basin and the icy, permanently shadowed lands near the Moon's poles.

As both a mathematician and a musician, professor David Wright believes in approaching the world both analytically and artistically. Back in 2002, he designed and began teaching "Mathematics & Music," an undergraduate course focused on the connections between these two abstract and beautiful fields of study. Wright, who serves as associate director of the musical group Ambassadors of Harmony in addition to chairing the mathematics department at Washington University in St. Louis, shares some concepts from the course and reflects on both the artistry of mathematics and the mathematical structure of music.

What do polygamy, prostitution, and pet inheritance have in common? For the final episode of Hold That Thought's 10-part series on American Identities, Adriennne Davis, professor of law and vice provost at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses the role of law in regulating intimate relationships in the United States. According to Davis, personal attachments, identity, and citizenship are fundamentally linked, and in her research, she envisions concrete ways in which the U.S. legal system might be more accepting of irregular forms of intimacy.

In Argentine tango, the steps that dancers perform - and even the shoes that they wear - tell a certain story about the correct role of men and women in the dance. In her recently released book How Americans Make Race: Stories, Institutions, Spaces, Clarissa Rile Hayward argues that racial identities are formed in much the same way. Whether looking at the 1920s or 2013, people's behavior and attitudes toward race are often influenced by factors beyond their own experience and control. Hayward tracks this phenomenon, introduces the ideas of 'institutionalization' and 'objectification," and reveals why some stories about race are more influential than others.

In 1913, Pearl Curran, a St. Louis housewife, sat at a Ouija board with her friends when suddenly the planchette went wild under her hands. It said, "Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name." And so began the literary career of the long-dead Patience Worth. Pearl transcribed novels, plays, essays, and poetry supposedly composed by Patience, and both became celebrities. Daniel Shea, emeritus professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, recently wrote a book about the phenomenon, The Patience of Pearl: Spiritualism and Authorship in the Writings of Pearl Curran. In it, he uses modern psychology and the writings themselves to uncover the truth of this ghostly voice.

In recent years, many Americans choose to label themselves as "spiritual but not religious." What is the history behind this type of open-road spirituality, and how have Americans' attitudes toward religion shifted over time? Leigh Schmidt, professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis, uses the story of Sarah Farmer - a visionary who started a religious community in 1894 - to illustrate the ever-present struggle between freedom and surrender in American religious identity.

What can a painting of people on a porch reading a newspaper reveal about what it means to be an American? Angela Miller, professor of art history and archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses the intersection of American arts and nationhood. With examples of portraits, landscape and genre paintings, folk art, and more, Miller explains how visual culture both constructs and challenges the idea of American identity.

When is literature a counterintelligence tool? When is it a means of protest or subversion? Under longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the written word was recognized as all of these and more, especially in relation to African-American writing.

For decades, African-American writers were under constant FBI surveillance and scrutiny. From the Harlem Renaissance through the Black Power movement, the FBI obsessively read and analyzed black writing, and black writers, who understood that they were being watched, created new works of literature in response.

This bizarre, intertwined relationship culminated in the 1960s, when FBI agents began imitating African-American authors in order to create fraudulent, subversive publications. William J. Maxwell, associate professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, documents this unique literary history in his forthcoming book, FB Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African-American Literature.